GART250: Great American Road Trip Is Out of Touch With Americans

May 24, 2026 11:49 AM EDT, Sun

The money behind GART250 would be far more effectively spent on promotional videos showcasing America — its landscapes, its National Parks, its cities, its small towns — instead of a seven‑month, security‑escorted road performance.

The problem(s) with the transportation secretary’s tone-deaf reality series

Sean Duffy’s return to reality programming isn’t just a political mess, it also raises unavoidable ethical questions.

May. 11, 2026, 7:58 AM EDT By Steve Benen

Just two weeks into Donald Trump’s second term, Axios published a report noting that the Republican administration/’s immigration crackdown included an emphasis on “choreography” and “wardrobe changes.” A White House official conceded at the time that the focus on “the visuals” was deliberate.

The New York Times added that enforcement efforts surrounding the administration/’s immigration policies were packaged “like mini reality-TV shows — complete with perp walks and even guest stars.” In the months that followed, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem appeared so preoccupied with camera-ready optics that some started referring to the administration/’s “Department of Homeland Publicity.”

After a while, it was hard not to get the impression that Trump administration/ officials were less an executive branch and more like a theater troupe that was principally concerned with putting on a good show.

Despite all of the previous efforts related to performative politics, however, White House Cabinet secretaries never actually starred in their own reality program during their official tenures — or so we thought. NBC News reported:

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is making a controversial road trip back to reality TV.

“The Great American Road Trip,” a five-part reality series set to air on YouTube in celebration of the United States’ 250th anniversary, follows Duffy as he travels across the country with his wife, Faux News host Rachel Campos-Duffy, and their nine children.

In a trailer for his new show, which was filmed over the course of seven months, the Wisconsin Republican tells viewers, “It’s more than a road trip. It’s a civic experience.” Duffy also promoted the show last week on Faux News, where he worked before joining the administration/.

If seeing the words “Duffy” and “reality show” in the same sentence seems at all familiar, it’s not your imagination. In fact, he was part of two MTV reality shows in the late 1990s, before he began his political career.

Evidently, the secretary found a way to combine both interests in 2025.

Not surprisingly, the unveiling of Duffy’s multipart reality series did not go unnoticed, especially given the fact that he’s promoting a lengthy road trip at a time when millions of Americans are struggling to deal with the burdens of high gas prices, generated by the administration/’s unnecessary war in Iran.

One of his predecessors, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, for example, wrote online, “I love a good road trip, but this is brutally out of touch: a Trump Cabinet member making a documentary about himself while regular families can’t afford road trips anymore, because Trump and his war put gas prices through the roof.”

What’s more, there are related questions about how Duffy managed to squeeze this into his schedule. Indeed, let’s not forget that he not only spent last year ostensibly leading the Department of Transportation (during multiple air travel accidents), he also simultaneously spent six months as the head of NASA.

But in case that weren’t quite enough, NBC News’ report went on to note that “several of the show’s sponsors — including Boeing, Toyota, Shell, Royal Caribbean Group and United Airlines — are companies that Duffy’s department oversees and regulates.”

Put another way, the secretary’s reality series isn’t just a political mess, it’s also raising unavoidable ethical questions.

For its part, the Department of Transportation said in a statement that the Great American Road Trip Inc. is an independent organization, and “how and who they accept donations from in furtherance of their mission to celebrate America’s 250th birthday is their decision.”

That’s good, insofar as taxpayers apparently weren’t on the hook for the five-part series, but it’s still not much of a defense, since it suggests Duffy, in addition to running NASA and a federal Cabinet agency, also freelanced with an independent entity to co-star in a reality show.

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.

Patty Murray (D-WA) Skewers Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy Like a Kabob

I’M DEMANDING ANSWERS: Calling Out Secretary Duffy for his “Great American Road Trip” Reality Show

Patty Murray (D-WA)

May 19, 2026 At a Senate Appropriations Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Subcommittee hearing on the FY27 budget requests for the Department of Transportation (DOT)—U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, grilled Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on his “Great American Road Trip,” which was paid for by corporate sponsors he is tasked with regulating, and pressed Duffy on how President Trump’s request would mean massive cuts to infrastructure funding.

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